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Topic: Treatment free (Read 8646 times)

In the fall when there is no more brood left in the hive, this is important beecause the last brood cells are crammed full of mites, it can bee beneficial removing the last frame of capt brood, and lots of mites.

I asked why? - Because ordinary Englishman cannot do according good advice. He must do it with own way.Canada accepted the Varroa Group advices last year, 10 years later than Europe. Why, - who knows. America wants to do its own researches and they do not want to know about EU Varroa Group results. When guys here advice "do nothing", all say HIP HURRAY and no one ask why

:-D It´s the same here in Sweden, maybe we can invent a better wheel :-\ :roll: :-D :lau:

Hmmmm is a round wheel the best construction, I think we need to gather a comity to discuss the best way to tackle this idea, don't wait up this could take a while :brian: :deadhorse:

Actually that 10lb (4.5kg) box of Oxalic acid is for bleaching some hardwood floors I’m rehabbing. I am familiar with the need for protection when working with the stuff. I guess it attacks the kidneys or something and can cause precipitation of stones in the human body. My brother had some kidney stones and they were extremely painful! I treat the stuff with great respect and the concentrations in bleaching floors is MUCH higher than the recipe you guys have provided for the bees.

Like I’ve said, right now I just rely on basic things like drone culling (and…OK…luck) to deal with the mites. If they do get out of hand at some point, I would like to have more tools available to deal with them. Thanks again for the info.

Now let me ask for your opinions about oxalic acid vaporizers. Is that method better or worse for killing mites?

To me, it seems like dribbling would be MUCH safer to the bee keeper and the acid concentrations in dribbling are pretty low, that is what I find more appealing.

Now let me ask for your opinions about oxalic acid vaporizers. Is that method better or worse for killing mites? To me, it seems like dribbling would be MUCH safer to the bee keeper and the acid concentrations in dribbling are pretty low, that is what I find more appealing.

I haven't met anyone that recommends vaporization because of the need to use a gas mask + it take along time to treat a whole bee yard.

I have talked personally with our Seppo Korpela what this means and he sais that Switzerland has lower percentage but in tests it gives almost same results. He was in EU varroa group as a researcher.

In Finland measures has bees the same 10 years. But something is happening now. Varroa has become more dangerous than 10 years ago.It is said that assistant viruses are more lethal than 10 years ago. Lots of hives have died for varroa during last 3 years in very experienced beekeepers' yards. I have treated my hives 25 years. First year it was 1987 a swarm. Stuff was Perizin and it is used still whne researcher want to know how many living mites the hive still have.

Mite drop after treatment is difficult because dead mites are in empty comb cells after 5 months.

Oxalic acid alone is not enough to save hives. Late summer treatment with thymol or with formic acid is more inportant to save winter bees.When these treatments are not successful, OA gives the final hit on mites and advantage is to bee seen next autumn.

But you see the results, when you give OA but you cannot see, how many living mites you have over winter. You may get 10 mites, 500 mites or 1000 mites. As guys say, varroa drop before treatment does not tell what will happen.

Canada is very experienced in Formic acid treatments but they have met heavy losses with mites. Reason is that treatment is not allways as successful as promised 96%. It is sometimes 80% or 70% and it is too much. Mite doubles itself in a month.

Formic acid treatment was very hard on my bee population this last fall. The major difficulty was timing treatment with the recommended temperature range. I was looking for something softer. It appears that oxalic acid is the ticket. If I understand all that I have read it would seen that trickling is best in fall, when broodless, and vaporization in spring over a three week time spread.Is this a correct statement?

Formic acid treatment was very hard on my bee population this last fall. The major difficulty was timing treatment with the recommended temperature range. I was looking for something softer. It appears that oxalic acid is the ticket. If I understand all that I have read it would seen that trickling is best in fall, when broodless, and vaporization in spring over a three week time spread.Is this a correct statement?

I have never done trickle, only vaporization. It is my understanding that trickling more than one time can do damage to the bees, where as vaporization can be done up to 3 times. I say "up to" because depending upon the situation, less than 3 can be effective. Back when I treated, I found 1 fall/spring vaporization sufficient. The key to OA is applying when there is no to very little brood as it is not effective against mites in capped cells.

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